The alternative title of this post is, "I've Never Been So Afraid of Relapse"; that I didn't relapse in the last week is why therapy works!
When we had our first COVID case at work on Wednesday last week, my anxiety immediately went through the roof. Not a panic attack, just incredibly stressed. For the rest of the work day, I hung on to even the tiniest piece of humor from anyone around me and tried my hardest to laugh at it all but by the time I was actually in the classroom, I knew I needed some serious R&R -- and fast! Thank goodness the kids already know and love me and know that I love them because, to me, it felt like the only nice thing I did for them that day was let them watch a movie.
I was so stressed that I barely remember the details of the day. Before I left home, I sprayed disinfectant over the entire room (including lightly on the floor) and, once home, my throat soar from inhaling so much disinfectant, I jumped in the shower just to soak for a couple of minutes and wash my body. That felt good and I relaxed a bit for a little while but it didn't last. By the time I went to bed, I was back to being incredibly stressed. I made sure to bless myself with holy water and St. Joseph Oil. I had taken my daily medication (the one I take for anxiety and melatonin) and was lying in bed listening to Night Prayer (hello, beautiful Hallow app! I'm so grateful for you), hopeful that I would actually be able to fall asleep without the help of emergency meds. As I lay there, tense and stressed, I did some muscle relaxant exercises (which helped!) and prayed earnestly to St. Joseph, asking him to protect me from this anxiety and to help me to calm this body and mind down enough to sleep and be well rested come morning.
That helped, too, and I did doze off a couple of times. But when I realized that it was after 10pm, I knew that it was time to take a small dose (0.5mg) of my emergency medication to get some real sleep. Since I'm naturally a morning person and, of course, always have somewhere to be during the week because I'm employed, I am up and at 'em at 5:30am, like it or not. After I took my medication, I slept and woke up feeling better first thing in the morning.
My stress level was less but still there for the remainder of the week. When my mom texted me an irrelevant question on Thursday night, I responded, "I'm just trying to get to the weekend...". (Now it is the weekend and all I can do is write about it to process it all.)
In the midst of all of this, I have decided that it is time to return to therapy. Those who have read my letter will know that I've had great success with therapy in the past. What is less obvious is that I've always known that I'm not done with therapy. In the interest of learning to be gentler with myself, I'll also share that it's incredible that I'm only now suffering from more anxiety and needing a new therapist again -- 10 months after COVID came to Virginia! I have truly done incredibly well even to the point of trying to come off my medication over the Summer (which didn't work but that is totally ok). I'm so grateful that I've done so well; it's enabled me to remind myself of the following in the last few weeks as I've struggled through higher anxiety levels:
I will be ok. It doesn't feel good right now but that's ok. I will be ok.
Those who struggle with anxiety can probably relate to this: I want to blame my heightened anxiety levels on anything else... anything else that possibly makes sense. Not people; more like circumstances. For instance, we're in the dead of winter now. February is my least favorite month and it looms around the corner. I want to blame the anxiety on winter blues (though I haven't been depressed), the fact that it's cold, and I want to tell myself that everything will be right again if I can just hang on until April/May. Or at least get me to March... then joy is right around the corner again.
But the truth is, I can be ok and will be ok right here, right now. And I'm doing the right, brave and strong thing now by reaching out and getting a new therapist to work with. I'm excited, in fact, to get back to therapy as I've had such a great experience with it in the past. I might do more CBT, I might try a different model of therapy. It could possibly be painful (growing pains usually are) but that kind of pain is safe and healthy and holy -- and whole-y!
Please keep me in your prayers and be assured that, as I write and find more things to write about, you remain in my heart and in my prayers as well.
Keep your heart up!
I'm no longer able to allow comments on individual posts but you are welcome to email me your thoughts. I look forward to hearing from you!
SARAHFIDDL3R@GMAIL.COM
